Compass
by missunderfoot
Summary: Jon and Arya returns to Winterfell only to learn that home, as they have known it, is gone.


Compass

 _Compass points you home,_

 _Calling it out from the east_

 _Compass points you anywhere_

 _Closer to me…_

Chapter 1: Jon

He went to her that night…

They were on their way south to treat with Daenerys Targaryen and her army when they were attacked by Lannister forces near the God's Eye.

He had been hesitant to bring Arya along with him, he wanted her to stay behind at Winterfell, safe behind its slate walls. They argued about it for days but in the end, he relented to her wishes, as he had always done in the past.

Her safety was not the only reason why he wanted to leave her behind. He needed time away from her — from her all-too-perceptive grey eyes and beguiling smiles. From the moment he saw her at the gates of Winterfell with her grey direwolf by her side, he felt completely undone.

She was no longer the scrawny little girl he bid farewell to five years ago. Gone was Arya Underfoot. In her place was a young woman with windswept dark hair and shining grey eyes.

His days became filled with visions of her. And he finds himself thinking of her even at the most inopportune times. It was madness. And he knew all too well that a man in his position could not indulge this kind of madness.

 _Love is the death of duty._ It is a lesson he has learned all too well.

At the start of their journey, he had given strict instructions to Brienne of Tarth to get Arya away at the first sign of danger. In hindsight, he should have known better. Arya would never turn tail and run from a battle.

While in the middle of a skirmish, he turned and saw her just as she savagely thrust her sword in a man's throat. She was wielding two short swords with Nymeria and a dozen or so lean wolves by her side.

His men were able to subdue the Lannister forces with minimal loss on their side. The Lannisters have endured countless battles since the day King Joffrey ordered Ned Stark's death; their forces were sorely depleted.

Once the dead bodies have been burned and the captives secured in the prison pen, he went in search of Arya, wanting to make sure that she's not hurt.

He found her inside her tent, naked in a copper tub, the water tinged pink with the blood of her slain enemies.

There were a hundred different questions swirling in his head.

 _What happened to you, little sister? Where have you been? How did you learn to fight like that?_

As if she could read his mind, Arya looked up to him with a wry smile. "Three years ago, there was a young girl who boarded a ship to Braavos with nothing but an iron coin and her little sword."

He kept his silence, looking at her with wary eyes.

She hugged her knees to her chest, curling into a slender ball of silky dark hair and porcelain skin. "In Braavos, she served the Many Faced God and gave His gift to many, many people."

"Since then she's worn a hundred different faces. The young girl has lived a hundred different lives and in the process, she has lost the best part of herself. All the good parts. It's all gone."

 _The Faceless Men._

In the past year he has learned bits and pieces about what happened to her after their father's death. There was Harwin, one of his father's men-at-arms, who told him about Arya's time with the Brotherhood without Banners. And there was the blacksmith who traveled with her from King's Landing and around the Riverlands.

He'd always wondered what happened to her in the years after she was separated from the Brotherhood. But this was quite beyond his worst imaginings.

He remembered the days leading up to his death, how he worried about her, his little sister, alone and helpless. And at that time she was in Braavos, training under the most feared guild of assassins in the known world.

He would have laughed if it wasn't so horrific.

She looked up at him. "Please don't hate me."

She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with unshed tears and her solemn face displaying all the hurt and pain she had tried so hard to keep from the world.

He needed to get away from her. It was a matter of self-preservation. Instead, he took a couple of steps towards her until he's standing by the tub, reaching out a hand to her wet strands, stroking her head gently.

"I could never hate you," he said quietly.

He didn't know how long he stood like that, stroking her head while she soaked in her bath, the cold water doing little to hide her nude form.

He traced the outline of her face with his fingers, lightly touching her eyebrows, the bridge of her nose, and her cheekbones. Until finally, he touched her lips with his thumb, stroking back and forth.

She stared up at him, her grey eyes, so similar to his own, unblinking, as she opened her mouth and sucked on his thumb. The sensation drifted from his fingers to his groin as if she was sucking another part of him.

"Arya…" He whispered, his voice hoarse.

She continued sucking his thumb, nipping it gently, while his other hand grasped the back of her head, asking her without words not to stop what she was doing.

 _Would you bed your sister?_ Ygritte's words came back to haunt him. And it was as though he'd been slapped.

He wrenched his thumb from her mouth. "I need to go."

She stared back at him, with a confused look in her eyes. And he couldn't blame her for it.

He took deep furious breaths, trying to control his arousal when she suddenly stood up from the tub.

She was entirely nude.

And in that moment, he felt every vestige of his control slip away.

 _You know nothing, Jon Snow_.


End file.
